Overcoming the Challenges of Supervision in a Religious Setting

Most ministers are not good supervisors. And … we have the potential if we seek to enhance our supervision skill set and work with a management coach who understands church staff dynamics.

I recently spoke with a ministerial colleague who lost her job through mismanaging a conflict with a staff member. It broke my heart to hear how that conflict escalated to the point where she was asked to resign. Thinking about my own missteps as a supervisor in the past had me feeling grateful I had not had things blow up on me.

Most ministers do not decide to enter ministry with the goal of managing a small non-profit. I entered with a vision of becoming a preacher, a teacher, and a pastoral care giver. Yet managing staff is a significant expectation of ministers, especially when there are full-time staff members. Classes in Biblical history and theology and preaching don’t have a lot of cross application to goal setting, support, evaluation and accountability

Religious organizations are different work cultures from most private and public sector employment. That is because of who works there, people who are often members of the congregation. And if they are not members with lots of friends in the congregation, after working there a short while, they make lots of friends in the congregation. . And these are not the elite of the workplace because churches rarely pay top dollar to their employees. Because the salaries typically are lower, the non-monetary reward expectations are much higher.

If an employee under-performs, which is not uncommon when you can’t pay well, discipline or firing can be very hard. Music directors that have been in a congregation for many years are almost impossible to fire as are old beloved church secretaries. Never mind they still use a typewriter and refuse to do email. “Oh dear old (fill in the blank),” says the congregational president, “She has served us well for so many years. You’ll just have to adjust to her ways.” Woe to a minister to seeks to resolve a staff issue by firing the employee without carefully bringing the leaders , the Personnel Committee, and key influential leaders along with him or her.

The hierarchical approach to management that you might have read about in the past is pretty much gone. It definitely is long gone from an anti-authoritarian institution like a Unitarian Universalist congregation.

Supervision is still needed however and problems do result when the minister abdicates his or her responsibility to manage the staff.

So what to do? What is attracting me right now is being the coach of the employee. The goals and objectives come from the congregational needs that the staff serves. The members are the employers. If they are dissatisfied with the work of the staff member, only then is there a hope of firing him or her. The leaders know who are the hard working and productive staff members and who aren’t. The minister must make sure that they know who is who and confirm their opinions.

The minister’s job is to align the needs of the congregation to the goals and objectives of the employees AND get their consent. Once that happens, the minister can work in a supportive and coaching role to assist the employees in getting their work done. Without setting those clear expectations (often made clear in job descriptions) the minister becomes the boss assigning jobs to be done and measuring performance. This is a recipe for failure for a minister. We just don’t have the time to dedicate to breaking down all the objectives into tasks and assigning them sequentially. It also puts the minister as an authority that is a set up for conflicts in an anti-authoritarian congregational culture.

The job for the minister is to TEACH the employee HOW to take an objective and break it down into tasks. The minister needs to make sure the employee gets the resources and education to be successful in accomplishing those tasks. And finally the minister must measure, evaluate, appreciate and celebrate each employee success, creating a praise feedback loop. When an employee falls short, the goal is to seek process improvements that enable success in the future. Employee failure is often a failure of supervision monitoring to catch the problem early and correct it. And when there is genuine employee failure that comes from incapacity or negligence, document, document, document. Bring the congregation along each step of the way so when a termination is necessary, they are with you 100%.

I’m writing all this down so I can follow my own advice or have members of my congregation read this and remind me of the wisdom of these words. There is nothing magical here, even some common sense, but it isn’t what most people do.

What interferes are those unpleasant emotions that disrupt clear communication. All ministers need the maturity to recognize when their feelings are interfering with their work. Expectations are often not met and the negative emotional response interferes with the role of being a supportive coach. That is why ministers need to find someone who can coach them and remind them how good supervision is done. I’m currently looking for that person for me.

We all need someone to keep an eye on us and help us to keep growing and maturing. We all get into trouble when we operate open loop as my minister friend who lost her job was doing. There may be some perfect people out their who can be in complete control of their lives. More power to them. The rest of us need help!

Sam Trumbore

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